The Demon's Half

Chapter 39

No one spoke for the rest of the day.

Elliot's cries were the only sound. He didn't deserve this. It was my fault. He lost his partner because of me. Everyone knew it. They just didn't say it out loud.

The chained men came to feed us bricks disguised as bread. I chewed until my gums bled. We swallowed like punishment.

No one asked where Carl had gone. She said she'd free one of us. But she never said where.
And I knew, we all knew, he might not be free at all.

Odysseus tried to push into my mind.
"Morgan—"

I shoved him out.
He sounded too much like Ozias. Same tone. Same rhythm. Same voice that had kissed the witch who killed my friend.

Logan opened his mouth like he wanted to say something, Carl's name, maybe. But the sound died halfway out, and he looked away. Jade tried to whisper something. I didn't catch it. I couldn't even look at her. I had been so stupid. So loud. So wrong.
She tapped my shoulder. A quiet 'I get it.'
But she didn't. She didn't know what it felt like to wear a graveyard on your back. To carry the weight of every mistake like it had claws. Daniel. Erick. Alilla. Carl. My father. My sister. Myself.
My fault. All of it.

And still, I could feel him. That thread. That shadow. That pull. Always there, just beyond reach. Mocking me with his silence.

Night fell.
More stale bread. A wedge of something hard enough to be called cheese. We ate like ghosts.
A spider crawled over Logan's shoe. We watched it, but no one moved to stop it. Then one by one, we lay down. No whispers. No sobs. No prayers.
Just the quiet sound of too many broken souls, trying not to exist.

________________

Somewhere between sleep and drowsiness, in that thin place where thoughts go fuzzy and the world feels hollow, I heard a voice.
A woman's voice.

"No one ever warns you how lonely survival feels."

It wasn't loud. Barely more than a thought. Probably a ghost, one of the thousands clinging to this castle.

"You've lived through things that should've shattered you."
"Maybe they did."
"But you didn't have a choice, did you?"
"You were expected to rise before anyone even noticed you'd fallen. To keep walking while your body screamed for rest."

I sank lower.

"They call you strong like it's some kind of crown."
"But strength isn't light."
"It's heavy. It aches. And no one ever helps carry it."

The voice curled around me like warmth I hadn't felt in forever.

"Survival doesn't always feel like a win. Sometimes, it feels like dragging a corpse that used to be you. Like a quiet graveyard no one else sees."

A pause.

"But even in the loneliness, just remember..."

Sleep pulled harder.

"Survival is about refusing to let what ruined you be the only thing that defines you."

I drifted, weightless.

"You're allowed to grieve what you've lost. You're allowed to hate what it's made you. But don't forget—you're still here.

And that matters."

________________

Eight days left.

The first rays of sunlight spilled through the iron bars, but they brought no warmth. It was too dark anyway. Right on cue, the Varnoks came stomping in. Shackles clamped around our wrists and ankles, dragging us out like livestock. Same theater. Same stink of expensive perfume. But this time, only one figure waited in the center.